The Media Front: Silent Right

Early in Barack Obama’s administration, conservative media figures stoked fears that the president might seek to constrain political discourse on the airwaves — despite his public opposition to reinstating the Fairness Doctrine.

The Fairness Doctrine was an FCC policy requiring broadcasters to offer contrasting viewpoints on the airwaves. The Reagan-era FCC formally abolished the doctrine in 1987, helping pave the way for the rise of right-wing talk radio. The following year, Rush Limbaugh launched his nationally syndicated radio show.

While some Democratic lawmakers and commentators mused about reviving the Fairness Doctrine in 2009, there was never any serious effort to reinstate it — even as Democrats controlled the White House and held large majorities in the House and Senate. And yet Sean Hannity and company sounded the alarm, propelling the topic into the political conversation.

As a media reporter at Politico, I was thrust into the talk-radio drama, and spoke with then-Indiana Rep. Mike Pence about how he felt Congress should “reject any hearings on the Fairness Doctrine or any form of censorship of the American press.”

Pence, a former radio host himself, told me: “Whether Rachel Maddow or Rush Limbaugh is your cup of tea, every American cherishes a free and independent press.”

How things have changed.

These days, Republican lawmakers and conservative media hosts have been largely silent about press freedom as Donald Trump and his allies take efforts to curb speech — from pursuing federal charges against Don Lemon after he reported on a protest, to Trump’s FCC probing “The View” and creating a chilling effect that led “Late Show” host Stephen Colbert to move an interview with Texas Senate candidate James Talarico to YouTube.

“FAKE NEWS” — ON FULL DISPLAY,” Fox News host Laura Ingraham declared on X promoting her interview with FCC chair Brendan Carr.

Ingraham described the CBS-Colbert clash as a “fake controversy” and “full-blown authoritarian fever dream” before turning to Carr, who said that “people have more trust and faith in gas station sushi than they do in the legacy news media.”

Carr framed the matter as CBS simply advising Colbert that he could run the interview with Talarico but “may have to comply with equal time” by also booking Democratic rival Jasmine Crockett.

Despite Carr framing the matter as a reasonable ask, it’s hard to ignore that the FCC chair is suddenly targeting daytime and late-night shows, which for decades have been seen as airing “bona fide news interviews” and exempt from equal time rules.

Colbert said this was the first time CBS had asked him to abide by equal time rules during his “Late Show” career. And the FCC’s focus on late night also comes as Trump has called for the firing of Jimmy Kimmel and Seth Meyers.

Meanwhile, Carr isn’t looking to enforce the same provision for radio, thereby sparing conservative talk shows. “There wasn’t a relevant precedent that we saw that was being misconstrued on the radio side,” he said when asked last month.

Trump’s FCC is making its priorities clear — and they happen to align with his interests.

Don Lemon speaks to the media after a hearing at the Edward R. Roybal Federal Courthouse in Los Angeles on January 30, 2026. (Photo by Patrick T. Fallon / AFP via Getty Images)

Trump bump 2.0

Texas Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico estimated Thursday on “Morning Joe” that “many millions more” people watched his “Late Show” interview on YouTube than likely would have if it had aired on CBS.

Talarico also raised millions of dollars in the aftermath of Stephen Colbert revealing on Monday night how new FCC guidance had rattled CBS executives and drove the candidate interview to YouTube, where it’s received more than 8 million views, dwarfing previous “Late Show” clips on the platform.

The president’s tumultuous first term led to a “Trump bump” in subscriptions for legacy news outlets aggressively covering his administration, like the New York Times and Washington Post, and spiked ratings at CNN, which struck a more adversarial tone. In Trump 2.0, the primary beneficiaries haven’t been legacy organizations, but individuals like late-night hosts (Colbert, Jimmy Kimmel), politicians like Sen. Mark Kelly and independent journalists like Don Lemon, underscoring how personal the attacks have become.

These ordeals have elevated their profiles, dominated news cycles and brought the First Amendment to the forefront, but don’t come without a cost.

My full piece here: Trump’s Media Attacks Keep Backfiring | Analysis

New York Times contract negotiations are heating up. (Credit: Craig T Fruchtman/Getty Images)

NYT AI drama

Corbin Bolies reports:

Contract negotiations between the New York Times and its union have become the latest battle over the use of AI in newsrooms, widening an impasse between the two sides just as their current agreement is set to expire at the end of the month.

The dispute comes as the news industry grapples with how to utilize AI effectively and ethically, and amid growing concerns the technology could fuel further cuts in a field already decimated by layoffs. Such fears were kicked up this week when the top editor at Cleveland’s Plain Dealer advocated for reporters in some instances to cede writing an AI rewrite specialist, a view that prompted an outcry among journalists on social media.

The union’s current contract expires Feb. 28, and how the Times’ negotiations play out could provide a template for other media unions hashing out AI provisions. The clash between the two sides reached an inflection point on Wednesday when Times management presented the Times Guild, the bargaining unit that represents nearly 1,500 members of the Times newsroom, with an offer that tied two different issues together.

Dive in for more on the Times-union dispute: AI Emerges as Flashpoint in New York Times Union Talks

Stephen Colbert addresses CBS’s statement about his James Talarico interview on Tuesday night’s show (CBS)

Chilling effect

The Colbert controversy is the latest black eye for the Tiffany network, which has been dogged by accusations of kowtowing to the Trump administration. It was Colbert who blasted CBS-parent Paramount last July for giving a “big fat bribe” to Trump to settle his “meritless” lawsuit over a “60 minutes” edit, as the company sought FCC approval for its merger with David Ellison’s Skydance. CBS News has since come under intense scrutiny since Ellison took control and installed Bari Weiss, co-founder of the right-leaning Free Press, as the news division’s editor-in-chief.

“CBS’ lawyers did what people say you should not do to authoritarianism, which is to obey in advance,” Blair Levin, who served as FCC chief of staff during Bill Clinton’s administration, told TheWrap. “There was no potential FCC action barring the interview, but rather only penalties if another candidate requested equal time and did not receive it.”

More in my column: Stephen Colbert’s CBS Clash Reveals a Chilling Effect Under Trump’s FCC

Plus: FCC Asks Broadcasters to Air ‘Patriotic, Pro-America’ Programming to Celebrate 250th Anniversary

James Talarico Says His Campaign Raised $2.5 Million Within 24 Hours of FCC-Banned Colbert Interview

Jasmine Crockett Slams ‘Weaponization’ of FCC After Colbert’s James Talarico Interview Debacle | Video

Sports news desks find themselves at a crossroads in a quickly shifting industry. (Christopher Smith for TheWrap)

Sports media shifts

Corbin Bolies reports:

Michael Powell, who wrote the New York Times’ “Sports of the Times” column between 2014 and 2020, used to get peppered by regional sports reporters about how to get a job at the New York Times, Los Angeles Times and Washington Post.

Since then, the New York Times disbanded its sports department, offloading coverage to the Athletic, which it acquired in 2022, and killed the seminal column that also featured star writers like Red Smith, Robert Lipsyte, Selena Roberts and John Branch. The Los Angeles Times stopped printing baseball box scores in 2023, and is reportedly down to just nine full-time sports staff writers.Earlier this month, the Washington Post shuttered its sports section as part of mass newsroom layoffs.

“It’s like so many areas in journalism now, the ladders are missing multiple rungs,” said Powell, who also spent 10 years at the Post between 1996 and 2006 and is now a staff writer for The Atlantic. “It’s a lot more difficult if you don’t want to just do fanboy coverage or fangirl coverage.”

The Post’s decision to cut its sports desk is the latest sign of legacy outlets scaling back daily coverage of sports, a yearslong retrenchment that has provided an opening for sports-centric outlets like the Athletic and independent journalists such as Pablo Torre, a former Sports Illustrated writer and ESPN personality who now has the podcast “Pablo Torre Finds Out,” to help fill the gap.

Check out Bolies’ full piece: As Sports News Desks Shrink, the Beat Is Forced to Evolve